Harrison St. and Sterling Bay Recognize Sorrento Mesa’s Growth Trajectory

Harrison Street and Sterling Bay West recently acquired five life sciences properties and a 13-acre development site located at 10390 Pacific Center Ct. and 9985 Pacific Heights Blvd., respectively, in San Diego’s growing life sciences and biotechnology submarket, Sorrento Mesa. The buildings in the portfolio are class-A tenant buildouts specific to life sciences operations, leased to Tanvex BioPharama, Wacker and Qualcomm. The purchase price was undisclosed.

“San Diego is home to a robust world-class life sciences sector and the Sorrento Mesa submarket is poised for long-term growth,” says Andy Gloor, chief executive officer of Sterling Bay.

As part of the transaction, Harrison Street and Sterling Bay have the opportunity to develop a six-story building of 355,000 square feet with a rooftop terrace adjacent to the existing portfolio. In addition, the JV plans to develop three six-story purpose-built life sciences buildings in three phases totaling 700,000 square feet on the 13-acre Pacific Heights Boulevard site.

“Sorrento Mesa is the densest fastest-growing submarket in the San Diego life sciences cluster with nearly half of the surrounding population employed by a professional scientific, technology or research-related company,” says Mark Burkemper, senior managing director and head of North American transactions at Harrison Street. “Additionally, support for life sciences and technology in San Diego continues to grow at a robust pace as funding from venture capital rapidly reaches new highs yet demand for purpose-built life sciences spaces consistently outpaces supply in the Sorrento Mesa market, which is facing historically low vacancies.”